Orlando Magic face dilemma: Go all-out or rest up?

April 4, 2011|By Josh Robbins, Orlando Sentinel

TORONTO — The Orlando Magic face a dilemma over the next week.

Should the Magic go all-out in their final five games of the regular season even though its playoff seeding is all but certain and attempt to build momentum for the postseason? Or should the injury-ravaged team attempt to give its players as much rest as possible?

A crystal clear road map doesn't exist.

On one hand, 15 of the last 20 NBA Finals champions and runners-up finished their regular seasons with winning records over their last 10 games.

But last year's Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics took a different route. The Lakers closed out the year with a 4-6 record, while the Celtics went 3-7. The franchises reached the Finals, seemingly proving that a team can flip a switch after a regular season ends and catch fire in the playoffs.

"The Boston Celtics can get to Day One of the playoffs and turn it on," Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. "They've been there before. They've won a championship. They know what it is. Other than [Nenad] Krstic and [Jeff] Green, their core is the same guys. They know what to do. The San Antonio Spurs can do it. The Lakers can do it.

"The rest of us can't do it. We don't have the background. We don't have enough guys that've been there and done it. We've got to go in [to the postseason] playing with great intensity and energy. We just do."

That explains why Van Gundy would like his team to play better Tuesday night against the Milwaukee Bucks than it did in a loss Sunday night to the Toronto Raptors. The Magic often looked like they were going through the motions against the Raptors, playing hard at times but coasting at others. That defeat dropped Orlando to 2-3 in its last five games.

Injuries complicate the situation.

The starting backcourt of Jameer Nelson and shooting guard Jason Richardson both had to play 41-plus minutes because fellow guards Gilbert Arenas, Chris Duhon and J.J. Redick suffered from injuries or illness.

In an ideal world, neither the 29-year-old Nelson nor the 30-year-old Richardson would have to play so many minutes with the playoffs just around the corner. But aside from using small forward Hedo Turkoglu at point guard and small forward Quentin Richardson at shooting guard, Van Gundy had no other options.

Even Dwight Howard isn't immune from playing extra minutes.

With Marcin Gortat gone, the Magic have no bona fide backup center. On Sunday, Van Gundy subbed out Howard for seldom-used Malik Allen early in the fourth quarter and saw an eight-point Magic lead turn into a one-point Raptors advantage.

"We'll be all right, though," Howard said. "We'll just try to finish the season strong without any injuries or anything like that and still try to win at the same time."

Howard has said publicly that the team needs fewer practices and shootarounds with the playoffs approaching.

The team did not practice Monday, but that day was scheduled as an off-day even before the preseason began. Van Gundy did, however, decide to cancel the shootaround that had been planned for Tuesday morning to prepare for the Bucks.

"Especially going into the playoffs, you can't just wait until the playoffs and try to turn this magical switch on," Jason Richardson said. "Especially our team, we've only been together three months, so we need every win we can [get]."

The Magic team that reached the 2009 Finals closed out its regular season with a 5-5 record. That included losses to three non-playoff teams over the last four games, and Howard sat out a game because of a sore knee.

Hedo Turkoglu played on that team, but he doesn't advise that the current squad take it easy, even though the Magic seem all but certain to finish the regular season as the East's No. 4 seed.

"You shouldn't be of that mind, 'Oh, we're locked-in, we should relax,' " he said. "We should just focus and finish strong."